Samsung Sleek – For social networking freaks
For:
Sturdy and compact design, good QWERTY keyboard, offers threaded text messaging and simple multimedia features
Against:
No EV-DO, so web surfing will be slower, photo and speaker phone quality is awful
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Samsung Seek is a CDMA dual band (1900/800 MHz) phone with dimensions of 4.12 x 2.08 x 0.58 inches. Weight of the phone is 3.85 oz. The lithium ion battery has rated talk time of 5.8 hours. The 2.6 inches TFT screen gives resolution of 240×320 pixels. The phone has 1.3 MP camera. Memory slot accepts microSD card. The handset has 128 MB RAM / 256 MB ROM. PIM features include calculator, calendar and alarm. Phone book features include caller groups, multiple numbers per contact, picture ID, ring ID, and 600 names capacity. Voice commands include speakerphone, recording and commands.
Razzle Dazzle:
Samsung Sleek is quite compact; it is 4.1 inches long, 0.6 inch thick, 2.1 inches wide and weighs around 3.9 ounces. The corners are rounded and the sides are curvy. On the back, there is a soft touch material which makes it feel nice in the hand. The device’s front is covered in glossy black plastic and for the keyboard; you have pink and blue color options. The slider is quite smooth and the phone locks securely in to the place at both the ends.
Inside Dope:
Touch screen is basically a high end or smart phone phenomenon but that doesn’t mean it cannot be offered on midrange phones. Samsung Sleek is an excellent example of this. It is more of a messaging phone made for social networking freaks. You have a full sized QWERTY keyboard for typing out those lengthy messages and the touch screen display too is good. The handset gives basic multimedia features like music player and 1.3 mega pixel camera. Apart from that, there are no advanced features on this cell phone. If you are looking for a mid range multimedia phone, this device will fit the bill perfectly. This gadget is yours for $79.99 and Sprint asks you to sign a two year contract. The 2.6 inch QVG display of the phone has a resolution of 240×320 pixels with 262k color support. You can adjust the screen’s touch sensitivity, brightness, and backlight time. This is not a capacitive display so you will need to press a bit harder. But the experience was still good and there was no lag for our presses.
Navigation array and keyboard
There are three buttons beneath the display: Call, Home and Back button. The Home button takes you to Favs menu and the Call button takes you to phone menu which is divided in to 4 different areas: phone dialer, recent calls list, contacts list and favorite contacts screen. The virtual keypad is quite roomy and they keys too are very large. Dialing a number is quite easy. There is no virtual keyboard for typing messages; you will have to use the physical keyboard, which is fine by us.
Sliding the phone on the right reveals the full QWERTY keyboard. It is made of four rows and the orientation automatically changes from portrait mode to landscape mode when you open the phone. The numbers buttons are blue colored. The keys are sufficiently raised above the surface and this makes it easy to type.
Phone book and PIM features
Samsung Sleek has a 600 entry limit for the phone book which is bit less as compared to high end smart phones which offer 1000 entries. However, this is a mid range phone so you cannot complain about it. A single entry can take multiple numbers, three email IDs, IM handle, web URL, street address, memo, birthday, and photo for the caller ID. There are 20 polyphonic ringtones to choose from and also four vibration alerts.
Music player
Samsung Sleek has a music player that is quite simple yet serves you well on all the basics. You can edit and create play lists on the move and there are shuffle and repeat modes along with standard player controls. There is just 128 MB of internal memory on the phone and the external card slot accepts up to 32 GB of memory cards. You cannot put music on the phone’s internal memory; the tracks are played only through the external memory card.
Camera
Samsung Sleek has a 1.3 megapixel camera which gives you four options for resolutions. You also have three quality modes. Other settings for the camera include night mode, 6 color effects, controls for white balance, shooting mode, self timer, spot/center metering, three sounds for shutter along with silent options and brightness. There is nothing remarkable about the photo quality. The images looked blurry and the colors were muted.
Call quality
Samsung Sleek has good call quality. There was no distortion or static during our calls. Voice was quite natural in our calls. On their side, our friends too said that the call quality was good. Occasionally the voice was a bit harsh but this didn’t bother us much. Speakerphone calls were awful. We had to keep the mic really close to our mouth while talking or else our voice was not heard well. On our side, the speakerphone calls had an echo sometimes.
Battery life
Samsung Sleek has a rated battery life of 5.8 hours and the standby time is of ten days.
Verdict:
The Samsung Seek is a great touch screen messaging phone from Sprint but be wary of speakerphone and photo quality, it is pretty awful.
